Eastern Issues Warning About Earnings Goal

Eastern Airlines Friday was or-dered by the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue a re-lease warning investors ``against relying upon`` earnings goals recently leaked by leaders of its pilots union.

Richard McGraw, an Eastern spokesman, said it would have been necessary to suspend trading of the airline`s preferred shares if the release wasn`t issued Friday morn-ing.

McGraw said company and SEC officials had ``several phone conversations`` Friday morning about the financial projections, reported in Thursday`s editions of the News/Sun-Sentinel.

Details of Eastern`s 1985 business plan were leaked Wednesday in a taped telephone message by Skip Copeland, chairman of the New York local of Eastern`s pilots union.

The airline did not refute the accuracy of the pilots` statements, but said, ``Such revenue and earnings goals were based upon assumptions, some of which may not be realized.``

``The goal of the (1985 Eastern) business plan is, one, the attainment of a 2 percent profit on the gross revenues, which would approximate $100 million,`` Copeland said in the taped message to pilots.

Last Thursday, Copeland and mem-bers of the union`s Master Executive Council were briefed in Miami for six hours about Eastern`s 1985 business plan by Chairman Frank Borman and other top executives.

In a taped message to pilots, Copeland outlined other aspects of the business plan:

(BU) ``No snapbacks would occur`` on employees` wages in 1985.

(BU) The airline would seek ``an additional 3.6 hours per month per working pilot on top of the work-rule concessions granted for 1984.``

(BU) Eastern planned to ``catch up`` on payment of dividends to holders of preferred stock. The airline has omitted the five most recent quarterly dividends.

``The company notes that its board of directors must make any decision concerning payment of dividends and that the board has made no decision in this regard,`` Eastern`s release said.

``Whether or not dividends on the company`s preferred stock will be declared may be expected to depend upon . . . satisfactory resolution of arrangements with its em-ployees concerning wage and salary levels for 1985.``

Julius Maldutis of Salomon Brothers, a leading airline analyst on Wall Street, said Friday he wasn`t aware of the financial information leaked by the pilots or whether it influenced trading of Eastern`s stock.

In trading Friday on the New York Stock Exchange, Eastern`s common shares were unchanged at $4.12, and its series of preferred shares showed little price movement in listless trading.